Party on, Canada
This year, Canada turns 150 years old and CBC is celebrating like it’s 50 Cent hanging in da club. Why yes, it IS our birthday! And we ARE gonna party like it’s our birthday!
The public broadcaster debuted the historical docudrama Canada: The Story of Us a little more than a week ago, and tonight This Hour Has 22 Minutes airs a onehour Canada-centric special to wrap up its 24th season.
In it, the faux news series will aim to answer longbrewing questions about our past, like why do we have two official languages instead of three? And is Tom Cochrane the official ambassador of the TransCanada Highway?
Actor, screenwriter and director Gordon Pinsent will make an appearance, and we’ll get special messages from actors Tom Jackson, Tantoo Cardinal and Jennifer Podemski.
The show announced Monday via its Twitter account that it will return with more episodes in the 2017-18 season.
“It’s official — we’re back for Season 25!” read a message. “See you in the fall for another year of fake news on @CBC.”
Taped before a live studio audience in Halifax, 22 Minutes stars Mark Critch, Cathy Jones, Shaun Majumder and Susan Kent, with Meredith MacNeill as a featured player.
HAIL, MARY
Imaginary Mary, ABC’s series blending live-action and CGI animation, debuts tonight. It stars Jenna Elfman as a fiercely independent woman named Alice, who must re-evaluate her life when she falls for divorced dad-of-three Ben (Stephen Schneider).
The CGI bit comes in with Mary, Alice’s imaginary childhood friend voiced by former Saturday Night Live star Rachel Dratch. The cherubic white creature is a bit unhinged, but it tries to help Alice make the transition to the next stage in her life anyway.
“We wanted to make a show with a little whimsy and an animated character,” executive producer Patrick Osborne told Variety.
Elfman elaborated on Alice’s need for an imaginary friend in the first place: “Puberty blows, if you have no parents and you need someone. Parents and puberty are a bad combination, but Mary is Alice’s little attempt at some self-determinism and some sort of buddy system. (When the series starts) she has no point of reference, no buddy by her side and no one to turn to.”
Imaginary Mary is the second live-action series with a CGI character to debut on a major broadcast network this season. Fox’s Son of Zorn saw animated warrior Zorn move from the fictional South Pacific island of Zephyria to Orange County, Calif., to reconnect with his ex-wife and teenage son. That show wrapped up in February, with only about 1.5 million viewers tuning in for the season finale. In Canada, it aired on City.